Korean owners of Volkswagen vehicles will be filing a damage claim against Audi Volkswagen Korea, the carmaker’s Korean unit, for the lost resale value of their cars due to the VW emission-rigging scandal, local news reported on August 4.
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Bavaria’s finance minister says the state plans to sue Volkswagen over losses to the state pension fund in the wake of the emissions cheating scandal that has taken its toll on the automaker’s profits. A recently published report from Automotive News Europe highlights that Bavaria’s state pension fund for civil servants “lost as much as €700,000 ($783,580) after VW shares plunged in the wake of the Sept.18 announcement by USA regulators that VW had rigged diesel engines to lower NOx pollution”.
The Bavarian Finance Minister, Markus Soeder (a member of the Christian Social Union sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats), stated bluntly in a recent interview: “We want this money back”.
Lower Saxony officials have expressed doubt that Bavaria’s legal action could succeed. The lawsuit makes Bavaria the first German state to file a lawsuit against the company in relation to the emissions cheating scandal. The state of Lower Saxony of course is actually Volkswagen’s second biggest shareholder, it should be remembered. “Therefore, it’s questionable whether a potential violation of ad-hoc rules even caused material damage”.
A spokeswoman for the finance ministry of Baden-Württemberg, another federal state, told Reuters that legal action against VW was under consideration.
Bavaria, home to German blue-chip companies including BMW, Siemens and Allianz, owned about 58,000 VW preference shares when news of the scandal broke, she said.
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This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
